By Gloria Ballard

From spring through summer, members of Davidson County Master Gardeners have seen their colleagues’ gardens grow and evolve during the 2025 Garden Tour season. And while gardening may be winding down (though some would say the season’s still in full swing!) it’s a good time to take a tour of Tours, looking back at the highlights of this year’s garden tours so far. 

April 26: Donna Jo Carey’s pollinator-friendly spring garden, which she says is “constantly in motion” in Donelson.

April 27: Ginny Russell’s beloved irises – she estimates 300 different varieties that line the driveway and wrap around her Donelson home.

May 3: Rob Quinn & Sheila Armstrong’s west Nashville “learning” garden that Rob compares to art: “It’s like a canvas,” he says, explaining how they see the blank spaces in the yard and decide how to fill them.

June 7: Portland Park, a public space at 21^st Ave. So. And Portland Ave. that Master Gardener Maureen May developed with Second Sunday Gardeners as a pollinator park in the Belmont-Hillsboro neighborhood.

June 8: Ellen Wright’s ever-evolving garden of “ongoing experiments” in Belle Meade, including perennials, shrubs, about 25 tree species, and several areas of white clover in lieu of grass, “for the pollinators.”

June 14: Stacy Fisher’s transformed landscape in the Crieve Hall neighborhood, which began as “an acre of weeds, trees in trouble and over growth on a six foot tall chain link fence in the backyard.”

June 15: Doris Weakley’s meandering paths through her extensive, mature garden of shrubs, perennials, annuals, trees, trellises, garden ornaments and more in Hillwood.

June 22: Amy Thomas’s hillside garden in Brentwood, with its elegant stone stairs winding through terraced beds and leading to a serene pond.

June 28: Amy Peterson’s small-space-big-impact garden of perennial and annual blooms and veggies in the ground, in containers, spilling over porch rails and hanging from the eaves of her home in Old Hickory.

July 27: Genma Holmes’s extensive garden spaces in Hermitage that began as a form of therapy for her son recovering from an injury, and has become a special space for experimenting that she shares with family, friends and especially her “three grands, who believe my backyard is a never-ending field trip.”

August 23: Rachel Esterday’s small but sunny garden space in Sylvan Park, where she embraces the idea of “chaotic gardening” with raised beds, trellises and containers, and where she also enjoys creating cyanotypes (sun prints) of items from the garden.

There’s Still Time to Host a Garden Tour!

Any member ofMaster Gardeners of Davidson County member can show off their garden by hosting a tour or open house. When you host a garden tour, you earn 15 volunteer hours. In addition, any Master Gardener who assists a host in preparation for the tour can record one volunteer hour for every hour you assist (including travel time to and from the garden). Master Gardeners who visit the tour garden can count the visit for one CEU hour.

Decide on a date and time for the tour. Email the request at least two weeks in advance to gardentours@mgofdc.org. Along with the date and time, include the address of the tour, a bit of information about your garden, and a couple of recent images that we can include with the announcement. We encourage tour hosts to include an educational component. Possibilities could include visible labels on plants, including botanical names; a listing of plants in the garden; a handout with information on design/planting/maintenance, or other learning opportunities relevant to your garden.